About San Luis Gonzaga Mission · Las Tablas, New Mexico
San Luis Gonzaga Mission is a small historic Catholic mission church in the village of Las Tablas, in Rio Arriba County, northern New Mexico. Built in 1899, it serves as a dependent mission (a "visita") of the parish of San Juan Nepomuceno in nearby El Rito, within the Northwest Deanery of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Along with six other mission chapels in the El Rito cluster, it is served on a rotating basis by the parish's pastor, with weekly Mass celebrated in the summer months as part of a circuit that brings the sacraments to the small Hispanic villages of the Carson National Forest foothills.
- Established
- 1899
- Patron
- St. Aloysius Gonzaga (San Luis Gonzalo de Amarante, as locally venerated)
- Rector
- Rev. Joseph Van Tao Nguyen (parish cluster pastor, San Juan Nepomuceno, El Rito)
- Diocese
- Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe
Why belong here
San Luis Gonzaga Mission is the Catholic spiritual home for the small, tight-knit village of Las Tablas, set in the wooded foothills of the Carson National Forest. It belongs to the parish family of San Juan Nepomuceno in El Rito, whose pastor circulates through seven mission chapels in the upper Rio Arriba highlands, so parishioners here receive regular Sunday and weekday Mass, sacraments and pastoral care without having to drive to town. If you live in or are visiting Las Tablas — or are drawn to the history, quiet rural character and living Hispano Catholic heritage of New Mexico's northern mission churches — this is a welcoming place to worship, to pray, and to be part of a centuries-old community tradition.
Mass times at San Luis Gonzaga Mission
Weekly Mass schedule
Confession times
- Saturday 3:00 p.m. at the parent church of San Juan Nepomuceno, El Rito
History of San Luis Gonzaga Mission
San Luis Gonzaga Mission was built in 1899 in the small highland village of Las Tablas, in the Carson National Forest foothills of Rio Arriba County, northern New Mexico. It was constructed by the local Hispano farming and ranching community in the same 'if you build a church, a pastor will come' tradition that produced most of the rural mission chapels of northern New Mexico. From the beginning the chapel was too small to support a resident priest and was grouped with the mission chapels of the upper El Rito Valley under the parish of San Juan Nepomuceno, El Rito. Today it remains one of seven active dependent missions of that parish, served on a rotating circuit by the pastor of San Juan Nepomuceno.
- Chapel built: 1899
- Original local dedication: San Luis Gonzalo de Amarante
- Parent parish: San Juan Nepomuceno, El Rito (parish church begun 1827, completed 1832)
- Diocese: Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe (established 1850)
Patron and Feast Day
The mission is venerated locally under the name 'San Luis Gonzalo de Amarante' — a characteristic New Mexican conflation of two Catholic saints: St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the Italian Jesuit seminarian who died in 1591 caring for plague victims in Rome and who is the patron of Catholic youth, students, and (since 1991) AIDS patients and their caregivers; and Blessed Gonzalo de Amarante, a 13th-century Portuguese Dominican preacher known for building bridges and chapels. The two became 'inextricably confused' in New Mexican Catholic usage, and the Las Tablas mission carries both names in the local tradition. The principal feast is celebrated on June 21, the liturgical memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga.
- St. Aloysius Gonzaga: born March 9, 1568, Castiglione delle Stiviere; died June 21, 1591, Rome
- Canonized December 21, 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII
- Declared patron of Catholic youth by Pope Pius XI in 1926
- Named patron of AIDS patients and their caregivers by Pope John Paul II in 1991
- Also patron of students, Jesuit students, and teenage children
Architecture and Setting
San Luis Gonzaga Mission is a modest single-naved adobe chapel in the traditional northern New Mexico village-church style. Like its sister chapels in the El Rito Valley it follows the Spanish Colonial / Hispano plan: thick adobe walls, vigas and latillas, a transverse clerestory, a narrow sanctuary with a retablo, and a bell wall or simple belfry. The building reflects the fusion of Iberian mission forms with Pueblo Indian building methods that gives New Mexico's historic churches their distinctive character — a tradition that 'benefited as much from the building traditions of the Pueblo Indians as from the ideas of the Spanish missionaries.'
- Building type: single-naved adobe mission chapel
- Roof: flat, supported by round vigas and latillas
- Walls: thick adobe in the New Mexican vernacular tradition
- Setting: small village plaza in the forested highlands of Rio Arriba County
San Juan Nepomuceno Parish Cluster
San Luis Gonzaga Mission is one of seven dependent mission chapels (visitas) of San Juan Nepomuceno Parish in El Rito, the parent church. The parish was formally established in 1832 and serves an area of small Hispanic villages spread across the upper El Rito Valley. Its mission chapels are: Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Cañon Plaza, Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Madera, San Luis Gonzaga in Las Tablas, St. Anthony in Las Placitas, St. Anthony in Servilleta Plaza, Our Lady of Sorrow in Vallecitos, and St. Mary in Ojo Caliente. Together they form a single pastoral unit within the Northwest Deanery of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
- Parent church: San Juan Nepomuceno, El Rito (parish established 1832)
- Mission chapels in the cluster: Cañon Plaza, La Madera, Las Tablas (this mission), Las Placitas, Servilleta Plaza, Vallecitos, Ojo Caliente
- Deanery: Northwest Deanery, Archdiocese of Santa Fe
Getting to Las Tablas
Las Tablas sits west of El Rito and northwest of Ojo Caliente in the Carson National Forest highlands of Rio Arriba County. The village is reached via New Mexico State Road 414 and local forest roads, and has no regular public transit. The parish office of San Juan Nepomuceno in El Rito is the main contact point for visiting the mission or arranging sacraments, and the parish phone is 575-581-4714. As with many small adobe mission chapels in northern New Mexico, visitors are asked to respect the building and the privacy of the small surrounding community.
- Nearest larger town: El Rito (parish seat, ~18 km)
- Region: Carson National Forest, Rio Arriba County, NM
- Parish office phone: 575-581-4714
- Public transit: none — car required
Pastors & rectors through the years
- Rev. Joseph Van Tao Nguyenat least 2018–present (per Archdiocese of Santa Fe parish directory)
Pastor of San Juan Nepomuceno Parish in El Rito, under which San Luis Gonzaga Mission in Las Tablas is served as a dependent mission chapel.